| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: that it attracted not the least attention.
CHAPTER III.
I WAS frankly, at the end of three days, a very prejudiced critic,
so that one morning when, in the garden, my great man had offered
to read me something I quite held my breath as I listened. It was
the written scheme of another book - something put aside long ago,
before his illness, but that he had lately taken out again to
reconsider. He had been turning it round when I came down on him,
and it had grown magnificently under this second hand. Loose
liberal confident, it might have passed for a great gossiping
eloquent letter - the overflow into talk of an artist's amorous
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: skirt at the fashion show."
"You!" cried the three, like a trained trio.
"Why not?" demanded Grace Galt, coolly. Then: "No; don't
tell me why not. I won't listen."
But Emma, equally cool, would have none of it.
"It's impossible, dear. You're an angel to want to help me.
But you must know it's quite out of the question."
"It's nothing of the kind. This skirt isn't merely a fad. It
has a fortune in it. I'm business woman enough to know that.
You've got to let me do it. It isn't only for yourself. It's
for T. A. and for the future of the firm."
Emma McChesney & Co. |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: Staying for thine to keepe him companie:
Either thou or I, or both, must goe with him
Tib. Thou wretched Boy that didst consort him here,
Shalt with him hence
Rom. This shall determine that.
They fight. Tybalt falles.
Ben. Romeo, away be gone:
The Citizens are vp, and Tybalt slaine,
Stand not amaz'd, the Prince will Doome thee death
If thou art taken: hence, be gone, away
Rom. O! I am Fortunes foole
Romeo and Juliet |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: it; and why, when it is made, it should afford us so complete
a pleasure. From the arrangement of according letters, which
is altogether arabesque and sensual, up to the architecture
of the elegant and pregnant sentence, which is a vigorous act
of the pure intellect, there is scarce a faculty in man but
has been exercised. We need not wonder, then, if perfect
sentences are rare, and perfect pages rarer.
CHAPTER II - THE MORALITY OF THE PROFESSION OF LETTERS (11)
THE profession of letters has been lately debated in the
public prints; and it has been debated, to put the matter
mildly, from a point of view that was calculated to surprise
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